Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco

By Richie Narvaez

High school student Holly Hernandez is determined to discover the killer of her social studies teacher and clear the name of her classmate, Xander Herrera, who was initially considered a suspect in the murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arte Público Press
• Release date: Nov 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781518506222

Richie Narvaez

Richie Narvaez (aka R. Narvaez) is the author of Hipster Death Rattle  and a collection of short stories, Roachkiller and Other Stories, which received the 2013 Spinetingler Award for Best Anthology/Short Story Collection and was listed as one of BookRiot's 100 Must-Read Works of Noir. He was born and raised in WIlliamsburg, Brooklyn.

Book preview

1

VICISSITUDE

The body lay on the pink rug in the pink room. Brown skin, teen-aged, barely more than a boy, really. Head slightly askew, arms and legs splayed out. Green checkered shirt, blue jeans, black Pro Keds, very dirty. That explained the stains on the pink rug.

A gun or knife would leave a wound, said Holly Hernandez, adjusting the tinted, tortoise shell, oversized glasses on her nose, depending on the caliber or size of the weapon.

Of course.

Nothing on the victim’s front side. We would have to turn him over to see if he was shot or stabbed there.

I’m not turning him over. That would be dangerous.

Agreed.

On the pink walls were posters of ponies, The Wiz, Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, Shaun Cassidy, Jimmy Carter, the Periodic Table of Elements and the FBI’s most wanted.

Holly bent down to look closer at the victim. If the killer used a wrench or a candlestick, the head would be cracked opened.

"Like an egg. Koosh!"

There would be blood all over the floor. And brains.

Grrross.

Holly stood up and crossed her arms. That’s the reality of this kind of work, Melissa. You’re going to have to accept that, if you really want to be a police detective.

Columbo never has brains all over the place.

"That’s because Columbo is not real. Now, a rope would leave gross ligature marks around the neck. But all this body seems to have is a big ol’ hickey."

He wishes!

Holly giggled, and Melissa snorted, which caused the corpse on the floor to finally lose its composure.

That’s not funny. I could totally have a hickey.

From who? Melissa said, lisping through her braces. Daisy Duke? In your dreams. Holly, you should see the poster he has on his wall of her. It’s obscene.

Marcelo the corpse moved to get up, which made Bandit, Holly’s Doberman Pinscher, get up too and begin licking his face.

Holly! Get your rabies dog away from me.

You’re supposed to be dead already. Rabies can’t kill you if you’re already deceased.

I don’t like this way of playing Clue, Marcelo said, lisping through his braces and nudging the dog away.

The twins were alike in skin tone and hair color but most of all in the way they laughed, big, opened-mouthed laughter, which Holly knew she would miss. They had all graduated junior high school the Friday before. She feared they would never see each other again.

I thought the game would be more interesting this way, Holly said. With three people, it’s too easy to guess who the killer is. I thought some forensic pathology would be neat.

"Okay, Quincy, ME. Can we play some tunes now?"

Yes, Marcelo, Holly and Melissa said at the same time.

Sweet! He jumped up and went over to Holly’s record collection, sorted by category and then alphabetical order, with the albums in one and the singles neatly stacked above them. You need some new records, he said. There’s almost nothing from before 1976. No Donna Summer. No Bee Gees?

Marcelo! his sister said.

Oh, yeah. Sorry. Say, how about ‘We’ve Only Just Begun?’

I love that song, but, Holly said. She flopped down on the floor and put her legs on top of her Funky Junk Trunk, which had belonged to her dad in the war.

Melissa flopped next to her and did the same. She said, Maybe we heard it enough at graduation and all the rehearsals?

Agreed, Holly said. How about John Denver?

But he always makes you cry.

Does not.

Does too, both twins said.

I already feel sad.

But we’re going to visit, Melissa said. It’s not like California is on the other side of the world.

Just the other side of the country, Holly said, which is actually a considerable distance.

We’ll come back for Christmas. Our parents promised we would.

ABBA! Marcelo took a vinyl single out of its sleeve, popped in a plastic adapter and threaded it onto the spindle of the record player. He turned the player on and there was a burst of static from the speakers. As the 45 began to spin, he set the needle at the start of the record.

Melissa got up to dance and sing with her brother. Holly watched her friends from the floor. They knew she didn’t like dancing, hadn’t danced for a long time anyway.

Eight 45s later, Marcelo sat on the floor. Bandit immediately sat next to him, placing his head in Marcelo’s lap. You should be psyched you get to go to a new school. Flatbush Tech! You’ll get to be with a lot of other brainiacs like you.

Melissa snorted at that. Yeah, so how did snot-faced Brandy Vega get in?

Brandy’s smart, Holly said. She might be mean and sarcastic, but she did do better in math than I did. She won that award at graduation.

I beat she cheated! Marcelo tried to push Bandit away, but the dog just moved closer.

Flatbush Tech was the best specialized school in the city, and students had to take a difficult entrance exam to get in. Holly wanted to go to Flatbush Tech because that was where her father had gone. Her plan was to study science, like her father did, to become a scientist just like her dad.

How are you going to avoid her, Holly? She hates you to pieces.

A million people must go to Flatbush Tech, Marcelo said. She probably won’t even see her once, if she’s lucky.

Eight thousand. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t care about Brandy. I’m just sad that you two won’t be there. I won’t even get to spend the summer with you because you have to move this week.

Think of it this way, Melissa said. No one will know anything about you, about your past. They won’t think of you a certain way, you know? And a new school means you’ll have a chance to make new friends and have new adventures.

My mother said the same exact thing to me this morning! Using the same exact words!

So did ours! the twins said.

They laughed for a while. Then Melissa put on the Grease soundtrack she had bought for Holly. They all sang along, Marcelo doing his best John Travolta imitation.

Hours later, after the twins had left to go home to finish packing, Holly’s room felt gigantically empty, cathedrally hollow. All the light, all the life had been sucked out of it. Holly plopped back on the floor, scooted next to Bandit, and cried.

2

HAPLESS

Outside at the B61 bus stop, Xander Herrera stood alone in the rain, under a broken umbrella that barely covered him. After a brief heat wave over the last few days, the sky had cracked open that morning and was pouring down seven seas worth of water. A fitting end to a summer of no smiles, thought Xander. His brown Pumas with yellow stripes were soaked through. He knew without having to look that his white tube socks were now also brown and yellow.

No person stood nearby in either direction on that block. All the buses had ceased to exist as well, apparently. Xander looked far down along Driggs Avenue, where cars and trucks sliced back and forth across the wet blacktop. There was not a single bus in sight.

This did not bode well.

He took his old Timex watch out of his pocket—its strap had disintegrated years ago. Was the second hand not moving again? By Odin’s furious beard! He tapped it and, with a hiccup, it ticked back to life again.

According to several calls he had made to the MTA, the bus was due at 6:45. If it stayed on schedule, he would arrive at Fort Greene Park at 7:20. He could have taken the G train, but it was a half a mile walk in the rain, always exceedingly unreliable and, worst of all, he would have been trapped in it with a lot of gawking fools.

He checked his watch again. Exasperatingly true to form, the bus was late. Definitely, defiantly, distressingly late.

An infinite amount of time later, it lumbered into view through a curtain of rain.

Sneakers squishing with every step, Xander climbed aboard, putting in his token and making a show of not looking at the driver—in order to communicate his disapproval of the driver’s tardiness. Now, if only there were no traffic or traffic incidents on the streets of Brooklyn would Xander arrive at his destination in good time.

Excelsior! A seat by itself! He plopped into it, tucked the wet umbrella into the side pocket of his heavy pleather briefcase, and set the briefcase down on the seat next to him. He immediately turned his gaze outward, so that no person claiming infirmity would plead for him to give up his spot. He watched the drenched nonsense of the world go by.

Slowly go by.

He made a mental note to add fifteen minutes to the start of any school day with inclement weather. That was what this practice ride was for, after all. To gauge mass transit. This was to be his routine, Monday through Friday, throughout high school, starting in just two weeks. He wanted nothing to affect the unblemished record of punctuality or excellent attendance he had accumulated since kindergarten.

Bored by the monotony of the borough out the window, Xander risked a look around at his fellow passengers. They seemed like lethargic sheep, traveling unwittingly to the slaughterhouse of the responsible grownup world. Get used to me, he mentally told his fellow passengers. You’ll be seeing me every day for the next three years, except for summers and religious holidays, of course.

He pulled a Robert E. Howard book from his briefcase and began to read, while enjoying the space he and his briefcase maintained from the others. A few stops later, however, a dozen people got on, and he had to surrender his briefcase’s seat. Very well, then.

Finally, after what seemed like several hours but what was in fact—he tap-tapped on his watch—sixty-three minutes (twenty-two behind schedule!), the bus arrived at his stop across the street from Fort Greene Park. Xander checked the time again as he alighted from the bus. The rain had slowed to spittle from the heavens. The school was on the other side of the park. He could, of course, walk through the park. The entrance to it stood in front of him. The walkway was littered with beer bottles, wet newspapers, pigeons, mud puddles. It curved into the unknown, shielded by dark, drooping trees. He checked his watch. It was twenty to eight. He decided it would be a good idea to see how long it would take to walk not through the park but around it.

Many commuters rushed hurriedly along the broken concrete and shambolic cobblestones ringing the park. Several men, covered by garbage bags, dozed on benches. Perhaps these were his future teachers. The Board of Education’s finest.

As Xander turned the northern corner of the park, the school towered ahead of him. An impressive symbol of Depression-era federal spending, Flatbush Technical High School stood nine stories tall, a borough-sized skyscraper that took up most of a city block. Xander admired its mix of Art Deco and Collegiate Gothic styles, as he walked up to the front door.

It was, of course, closed for the summer, but he checked the lock anyway. School would not start for another month. Flatbush Tech was one of the few specialized high schools in New York City, a refuge for the best and brightest. Xander had been the only student in his junior high school graduating class to pass the entrance exam, so no one here would know anything about him at all, which pleased him immensely.

He checked his watch and calculated that his commute would be approximately one hour and seven minutes, door to door. Taking into account the average time of his morning ablutions, which were not inconsiderate, he would have to arise each day at 5:45. Which meant that in order to get his absolutely essential eight hours of sleep, he would have to be asleep by 9:25 p.m. That could prove difficult, but he would manage.

Xander decided to have a look around, since he was in no hurry to get back home. There wasn’t much to see. Regal, imperturbable, large-stooped brownstones lined the street across from the school. The street itself was empty, silent.

He walked to the back end of Flatbush Tech and saw a narrow alley behind the school that led to the street on the other side. He decided to walk through it to get to the front, to get a full 360-degree view.

He took stairs down into the alley. Nothing much to see. High fence on one side. Two small windows of the school, gated. Closed rear exit doors. Puddles. In front of him was a steep ramp going up to the street. He walked toward it.

But suddenly, at the top of the ramp, stood a man.

The man wore a long coat and had long hair and a squat hat. His hands were stuffed in his pockets. Then he took one hand out. In it there was something metallic.

Xander felt a deep cold in his bowels. He tried to move his feet but found he could not. The rear exit door—he was right in front of it. He moved to turn the handle, but of course it was locked. Of course!

He had to run. Feet, you must start working. He had to get back up the steps. And then onto the street, the street where he had seen no one. Where this man could pursue him. But at least he’d have a chance.

Still, his feet would not work.

The man walked to a space in front of Xander and roughly pushed him back to the exit door.

Xander dropped his briefcase. He knew death was imminent. And there were so many books still to read.

Give me your money, the man said.

I don’t have any, Xander said, his throat feeling tight and dry, as did his sphincter.

I don’t want to use this.

Xander saw that the sharp object was one-half of a pair of scissors, just one of the blades. The man held it close to Xander’s throat. The tip of it bit into his skin.

Xander reached in his pocket. All he had was less than fifty cents, one token for his return-trip home and his watch. That’s all I have, he said.

Give me the watch, bro, the man said.

I can’t.

I don’t want to cut you.

No.

Come on! Let’s go.

The scissor blade touched Xander’s skin. With a shaking hand, he handed the watch to the mugger.

Thank you, the man said. He took his blade and walked away, up the ramp.

Xander’s feet tentatively began working again, allowing him to walk very slowly back up the stairs. He remembered his briefcase and slowly stepped back to pick it up.

He had lost his watch. He had no money to go home.

Xander walked a few feet, when suddenly the man was there again, at his side.

Hey, kid, the man said.

Xander had nothing to say to the man.

Say, kid, was that your last token?

Xander nodded.

Here, bro. The man handed the token back to him. This is so you can get home.

May I have my watch back? Xander said.

Nah, my man, I need that.

Xander kept walking and the mugger kept walking next to him.

You should be more careful where you go, kid. Things happen to you, ya know. The man rolled his sleeves and showed a tattoo. See this? I got this in prison. I went down the wrong road and did some bad things. Trust me, you don’t want to end up in prison. It’s a heavy place.

Xander nodded. Did the man expect sympathy? Xander thought of a thousand deadly oaths but didn’t utter a single one.

Take care of yourself, kid. Don’t let people pick on you. Watch where you go, like I said, okay? Get home safe.

It seems a little too late for that advice, Xander thought. He watched the mugger turn and walk back into the alley.

Xander walked a little more quickly—his legs worked well again. Finally! He walked back around Fort Greene Park, back to the bus stop. It had started to rain again. He shoved his hands into his empty pockets and stood there waiting with his broken umbrella.

When Xander got home he was tired and his feet were soaking wet. He stood there, shocked, silent, sad. His grandmother saw him enter and unfolded a newspaper for him to stand on.

M’ijo, she said, squinting at him through thick glasses. La lluvia te besó fuerte.

She helped him take off his shoes and peel off his wet socks. They were fecal brown, indeed.

She was tall, but still she had to pull his head down to wrap her big arms around it. Pobrecito niño, she said. "¿Quieres algo de comer?"

He didn’t have to answer. There was already a cup of hot chocolate and a small plate of sorullitos de maíz at the kitchen table waiting for him. And she was already moving to the refrigerator, getting stuff together for a sandwich.

Yes, please, Abuela, very much.

He plopped down into a kitchen chair with a squish.

3

FORTUITOUS

Holly moved as stealthily as she could. Surrounded by a grove of fragrant pinus rigida, she could still smell the salt of Napeague Bay nearby. The day was cloudless, and she could just see the water sparkling through the trees. She crouched low and then remained as motionless as possible. Bandit stood right by her, and when she cocked an eyebrow, the Doberman immediately dropped to the ground with a crunch. She checked to see if the sound the dog made had disturbed the brilliant thing, the magic thing perched high atop a bare tree twenty yards ahead.

What is that?

Shhhh, Mom, Holly said.

She was grateful and amazed that her mother had been as quiet as she had been so far. She could move stealthily—she used that skill on the police force every day. But she wasn’t always good at keeping the peace off the job. Especially at times like this.

Is it an eagle? she said.

It’s a great egret. A fledgling.

What makes it so great? Huh? See, I made a joke.

Holly gave her mother her best disapproving squint, but she couldn’t help smiling back. Her mother’s corny jokes were a good sign. It meant she was feeling relaxed, carefree. It was a state of mind Holly hadn’t seen in her mother’s face for a long time.

Holly had the same brown hair, big brown eyes and tiny teeth her mother had. But her mother had a beauty Holly didn’t think she would ever achieve, what with her gangly limbs, fat nose and the forest of hair that was growing that very minute up and down her arms.

Sorry, Holly. Do you want me to take a picture of the big bird?

The last thing Holly needed was for her mother to start snapping pictures and scare off the egret. Besides, Holly didn’t need to preserve this moment on film to enjoy it later. She wanted to enjoy it now.

Miles away, a Long Island Rail Road train noisily pulled into the station. The egret looked up quickly but then went back to cleaning its feathers. It was probably used to the sounds of trains by now.

Holly loved being out in nature, embraced by the goldenrods, kissed by the orange-blossomed butterfly weeds. Give her a canteen, a flashlight, a pocketknife and her dog, and she could stay there forever. Not even mosquitoes would spoil it.

But she could feel the weight of her mother’s impatience behind her. This wasn’t her kind of scene. Her mother preferred looking at boats and fireworks and baseball games. But Holly she didn’t want to just sit back and observe. She wanted to live those things, be a part of those things, sail the boats, set off the fireworks, hit the homerun.

These mosquitoes sure are hungry, aren’t they? her mother said.